Practice Shorts and Idea Dumps

There’s an old saying. It goes something like, “When you go looking for trouble, you usually find it.” I wasn’t going to disagree, but I was also hoping I didn’t find any trouble I wasn’t looking for.

I smiled as I reached my destination. I knew it wasn’t a nice smile. I didn’t really care either. The Shifting Sands, bar in Los Pegasus and, to those in the know, a great place to find information on the criminal elements of society of the changeling variety. I walked confidently forwards and entered the place.

Inside contrasted outside in many ways. Some pleasant, some… not so much. The bar was cool and dark versus the bright, burning dessert sun outside. However, unlike the relatively clean streets of Los Pegasus, the bar was the very definition of a hole-in-the-wall dive.

I smiled. This was exactly the sort of place I was looking for. I walked towards the bar with an unhurried tried, my eyes scanning the crowd. Not one of them made any attempt to meet my eyes. I didn’t blame them, either. The heterochromatic irises could be unsettling just looking in the mirror. One a flaming red, and the other an icy blue, they struck quite the contrast.

Once I reached the bar, I took a seat on an empty stool, still scanning the clientele, looking for a mark. A pony I could identify as a changeling, and one that seemed to know what he was doing. It wouldn’t be too hard to find that changeling I didn’t think. All I had to do was find a pony the smelled like a changeling, but gave no other signs.

And not just the ‘I slept with a changeling’ scent, either, but truly smelling like a changeling. It was actually kind of funny, how much those two could differ, not that I’d finally learned how to properly use my nose. A few personal enhancements had helped.

“Well, look-ie here,” a sleazy voice said off to my side. I looked over to see a pony whom I’d hoped I’d never see again. Northern Nightmares was a beige stallion deep walnut coloured mane, tail, and handlehbar moustache. He was also, unfortunately enough, a pure blooded pony, so as much as I would like to buck with him at the moment, he wasn’t what I needed.

“Not in the mood,” I said coldly, turning back towards the bar in front of me. I really wasn’t.

“Oh, come on Evakan,” Northern replied, his voice smooth and unruffled. “Don’t be like that.”

“If you don’t leave right now, the only family jewels you will have will be of the gemstone variety,” I told him, my voice perfectly even. I felt his hesitation as he weighed the risks of continuing to try to talk to me versus just walking away.

Eventually, he chose the smart choice and I heard his stool slide away, followed by his footsteps as he walked off. I smiled at that. The stallion had made a good choice. I really hadn’t been in the mood to deal with him.

“Somepony’s in a bad mood,” a voice noted coming up behind me. I didn’t recognize it, and as the stallion took a seat beside me, I didn’t actually recognize his looks either. Dark brown mane, deep green coat. Seemed like it really should be the reverse, but I wasn’t about to say anything.

I took a deep breath and sighed. It looked like a stress relief exercise, but really, I was taking in his scent. Ensuring he was actually somepony, or rather someling, that I was looking for. The scent quickly confirmed that he was indeed, a changeling, and now came the hard part. Getting the conversation where I needed it to go. “Maybe I just don’t like him,” I said, turning to the new stallion fully, putting an enigmatic smile in place.

“Oh, and what could he have done to have pissed off such a lovely mare as yourself?” the stallion asked, smiling back, a twinkle in his eye as he took the now empty seat beside me.

“Be himself,” I answered, unwilling to get into the incident that had caused me to hate him so much.

When I didn’t elaborate, the stallion chuckled. “Oh, that bad, huh?” he asked in amusement. “Might I get the name of such a lovely mare?”

I tried not to smirk at how thick he was laying it on. Maybe he just liked a challenge. I rewarded his efforts with only a single raised eyebrow, however. “Evakan Froollect,” I answered, giving him part of my birth name. I went by a different one most of the time, but that one I almost never gave anymore. Not to anyone outside my friends.

“Everchanging Frostfire? You part baut?” the stallion asked, his tone intrigued, but his eyes were cautious. I was setting off alarms. That wasn’t something I wanted to do just yet, though.

“Half,” I answered him smoothly. “My mother was a baut. Not many ponies can speak the language. You not entirely earther?” I quirked a half smile, wondering what his answer would be for that. I already knew the truth, but it would be interesting to hear what his excuse was.

“I studied languages when I was younger,” the stallion answered me, smiling. “I took a liking to the tongue. It’s really quite intriguing.” I knew that was at least partly the truth. A truth spoken in such a way that I couldn’t find fault with it, either, even knowing what he was.

“Oh, and does the speaker of tongues have a name?” I asked, giving him a proper smile. He was exactly the type of changeling I needed.

“Forest. Shady Forest,” he answered easily.

I nodded to him, smile growing. “Now there’s a name I wouldn’t mind. Wouldn’t draw so much attention,” I replied, the lie coming smoothly. I had a more normal sounding name I could use. I just chose not to. Evakan Froollect just worked so much better for my purposes, these days.

“Well, you could always just change your name,” he suggested, sliding in closer to me. “You can be anything you want in Pegasus, no?”

I smiled, giving him a raised eyebrow. “You really believe that?” I asked him with a laugh. Your past always caught up with you eventually, I’d always found. There was really no escaping it. Sometimes it wasn’t even your past. In my case, it had been my father’s past.

“Of course I do,” Forest answered with a laugh. “Anyone can be anyone in Los Pegasus.”

I smiled, putting my wing around the changeling. Then I did something I rarely had the need to do. My transformation was limited by my mass. The changefire was required to alter my mass, and I didn’t have the adaptions that full blooded changelings did to stop the pain of the fire. At the same time, though, I had a few up on them. Even though I couldn’t use the fire without pain, that meant I could flamelessly change myself.

I added a small sting and associated venom bit to the underside of my wing and stung him. He didn’t even seem to feel it, though that was exactly what I’d been aiming for. A truth venom administered without knowledge was always when it was most effective. Night thing about the particular one I’d chosen, however, was that the lethal dose was much higher than the dose required for it to manifest its compulsion effect. My mark wouldn’t feel like he’d suffered anything more than if his digestion had had a serious disagreement with something he’d eaten.

“And who do you think I could be?” I asked him with a flirty smile, knowing I’d need to delay a couple more minutes until the venom kicked it. I also removed my sting and associated systems, just in case.

“Oh, I’d need to get to know you just a little better to tell you that,” he told me, winking.

“Feeling a little forward?” I asked him with a giggle, not removing my wing from around him and moving myself just a little closer. Small enough that it should make him wonder if I’d actually moved, but that was exactly what I needed.

“Maybe,” he teased. “Or maybe it’s just the mare with her wing around me that’s making me more forward.”

He had a point, but I wasn’t going to let him know that easily. “Maybe. What if that mare has some questions about the dashing stallion under her wing?” By this point, the truth venom should have taken hold.

“I’d answer, of course,” the stallion said to her with a wink. “What else is a stallion to do with such beauty beside him?” The line was almost sickeningly sweet, but then again, cheesy flirting could be a fair bit of fun. I just needed to figure out how I wanted to word my next question and hope the venom’s truth forcing effect had taken hold. This could end somewhat badly if it hadn’t.

“Alright,” I said sweetly. “What do you know about the Shadow Consortium?”